"Friends," I appealed, "this is a personal matter; it gives me no concern. It will affect neither me nor my work. Please name suitable women for the committee of relief which I am here to ask." Business being concluded, I turned to Mr. B, who was shut in with me by a press of sympathizing friends, and expressed my regret, that he should have said anything to place him under the necessity of apologizing, adding, "but I hope in future you will remember the words of Solomon: 'Greater is he that controlleth his own spirit, than he that taketh a city.' Good-night, sir." I learned that a few months before he had prevented his people from inviting Antoinette Brown to speak to them on Temperance, by declaring that "he would never set his foot in a pulpit that had been occupied by a woman." When three weeks later I heard of his dismissal from his charge in S, I could appreciate the remark of his brother clergyman in a neighboring town, to whom I related the incident, that "Brother B is rather given to hooking with those horns of his, but he's in hot water now."
In the winter and spring of 1856, I had, by invitation of its editor, written a series of articles on the subject of woman's legal disabilities, preparatory to a plea for political equality, for the columns of the Kansas Jerald of Freedom, the last number of which went down with the "form" and press of the office to the bottom of the Kansas river, when the Border ruffians sacked Lawrence in 1856.
In March, 1857, I again returned to Kansas, and with my daughter and youngest son, made a permanent home in Wyandotte County.
The Constitution was adopted in November, 1859, by popular vote. In January, 1860, Kansas having been admitted to the Union, the first State Legislature met at Topeka, the capital of the new State. I attended its sessions, as I had those of the Convention, and addressed both in behalf of justice for the women of the State, as delegate of the Kansas Woman's Rights Association. This Association was formed in the spring of 1859 with special reference to the Convention which had already been called to meet in the July following, in the city of Wyandotte.
The Association — if I recollect aright — numbered some twenty-five earnest men and women of the John Brown type, living in Moneka, Linn County; John O. Wattles, President; Susan Wattles, Secretary. Wendell Phillips, treasurer of the Francis Jackson Woman's Rights Fund, guaranteed payment of expenses, and the Association sent me, with limited hopes and unstinted blessings, to canvass the principal settlements in the Territory, obtain names to petitions and represent them — if allowed by courtesy of the Conven-
